East Dallas Times

by Bruce Felps

Last night for dinner I made, more concocted, something that brought on a fit of laughter and dismay as I ate.

I’ll get to dinner in a minute … or 60, I don’t type very fast, but first the lead up to last night’s fare.

See, I’ve lived on my own now for a couple of years after a steady stream of relationships. Pretty much went from one to another to another to the last with little to no break in between. Some even overlapped, not that I’m proud of that, but back in the day I lived a male piggy life in a lot of ways, and like this guy, had difficulty keeping track of my trousers a few times.

Having been on both sides of that infidelity coin, at least I strongly suspect that to be the case — I’m not completely sure if I did or not — I’ve taken a blood oath to avoid such temptations. Easy for me to say now that those temptations rarely, if ever, present themselves anymore.

Anyway, for a great number of years I had a female influence in my life and yielded to the gentler persuasion to hone the rough male edges. Now that it’s just me, I find a growing sense of guydom creeping into everyday life.

Are you gonna eat that?

So last night about 9 the hunger rumblings started to kick in and it was time to eat. I rummaged about in the ‘fridge and found some leftover casserole that needed a little help. Help came in the form of crushed up potato chips. 

“Gawd,” I thought as I munched down, “this is such a single-guy thing to eat [hahahaha … choke, cough, gasp].”

Definitely not something I would whip up for two. Or one again. Probably.

But during the last while, I have made sustenance, or subsistence, out of a hotlink sandwich for breakfast, granola bars for dinner, and revived a childhood memory by eating peanut butter-and-mustard fold-over sandwiches, and I gotta say, not bad, not bad at all.

I am about this close to the point where flour tortillas and catsup mean, woo hoo, burritos. Add in some Frito Bean Dip and, score, burrito supreme.

Lessee what’s on the tube

I do not, though, plop on the couch and watch TV in my boxers. Mostly because I do not own boxers, nor do I wander around the house in my skivvies. I have a little more class than that. I at least put on a pair of sweats or something.

Neither do I have Cinemax set among my favorite channels … mostly because I axed the premium cable package long ago to save money.

I will, though, watch just about any and all sports on TV. Well, except baseball, boring; golf, even more boring; basketball, how exciting can a sport be when both teams score like 100 points; NASCAR, what’s the point; or soccer, I don’t get the finer points.

Hockey or football, though, and I’m there … on the couch … drinking a beer … eating a burrito … and how guy is that?

Free at last, free at last …

The absence of female pressure, sorry, presence on the male lifestyle means I can leave my damp towels in a heap on the bathroom floor, leave the bed unmade, leave the toilet seat up, leave clothes on the floor of the utility room, and leave dirty dishes in the sink.

I don’t, of course, because I can’t stand any of those things so to some degree this monkey’s been trained.

I am, though, a single heterosexual male, and I do not see dust or its little progeny, bunnies.

So if you want to come over for a visit, give me a little notice, like, say, a week. That way I can make sure the place is cleaned up.

I might even bake a cake [hahahaha … choke, cough, gasp].    

Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times. He might be housetrained but he’s not broken.